Conventional integrated circuits (ICs) are typically used to implement a particular circuit design. The IC implementing the particular circuit design may be used for a number of different diverse applications, including media, networking and communications, personal computing, and so forth.
The circuit design implemented on such conventional ICs is generally singular in nature. That is, a single hardware instance of the circuit design is implemented on the physical “real estate” of the IC.
Such conventional single-circuit approaches have certain disadvantages. For example, the entire IC may become non-operational if a fault or damage is sustained by the single circuit. As another example, such single-circuit approaches may generally not be very resistant to hacker attacks directed towards the IC, unless sophisticated and expensive security mechanisms are put into place, since hackers may specifically tailor their attacks to the single circuit. Still further as an example, conventional approaches may be inflexible in that the single circuit may be limited to a single application and/or to a single function.